Alamance County commissioners ask governor for regional approach to coronavirus

Isaac Groves Times-News

Tuesday

Apr 21, 2020 at 5:05 PM

GRAHAM – While not asking that the state lift COVID-19 quarantine restrictions on Alamance County specifically, county commissioners are asking the governor to lift restrictions in counties with low rates of infection.

"It’s important to me that people understand the respect I have for Gov. (Roy) Cooper," said Amy Galey, chair of the Alamance County Board of Commissioners, in a recent meeting. "I hope he is the kind of leader that listens to other voices and perspectives … than he might get inside the beltway in Raleigh."

The five-member board, by consensus, this week approved a letter Galey wrote to Cooper asking that he adopt a regional approach to lifting his executive order that most North Carolinians stay at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

"Thirty counties in North Carolina make up 86 percent of the COVID-19 case count," Galey wrote. "However, Executive Orders cover the entire state without regard to the severity of the outbreak. Instead of crafting state-wide restrictions, I respectfully ask that you consider a regional approach of working with local governments to keep necessary restrictions in place in the areas that have been hard hit by the virus while allowing rural counties and towns to begin rebuilding their communities."

There were about 60 confirmed local cases of Covid-19 earlier this week, according to the Alamance County Health Department. Forty of those infected have been released from isolation; 18 cases were considered active and six people were hospitalized. There have been no reported deaths in Alamance County linked to the pandemic.

That makes Alamance County an outlier among the harder-hit counties along the state’s interstate corridors. Guilford, Orange and Chatham counties all have well over 100 confirmed cases each and all have had deaths caused by the virus. Even Randolph County reported 78 confirmed cases and two deaths as of Tuesday, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

Lifting restrictions in rural counties, Galey argued, would let children without high-speed internet access get back to school and let rural hospitals get back to performing elective services and recover financially.

The letter encourages Cooper to consult with leaders in the hardest-hit counties and cities to create consistent regional restrictions to avoid too much inconsistency.

The governor’s press secretary, Dory MacMillan, responded to the Times-News questions about the letter.

"We appreciate the input and coordination of elected leaders at all levels," she wrote. "We will continue working with them, public health experts and other experts on how to move forward in the best interests of all North Carolinians."

While the rest of the board supported Galey’s message to the governor, not all of them shared her measured tone.

"I think (Cooper) was a little fast to make that decision," Commissioner Bill Lashley said about the state’s executive stay at home order. "He needs to get off his butt and reopen the state."

Galey, Lashley and Commissioner Tim Sutton were the only commissioners actually at the meeting. To comply with the 10-person restriction in the governor’s executive order, commissioners Eddie Boswell and Steve Carter joined the meeting by phone.

Earlier in the meeting, Sutton questioned County Health Director Stacie Saunders about local reporting and the validity of COVID-19 testing.

"Do you think we’re too quickly confirming people?" Sutton asked.

Sutton said he was skeptical about the reported number of cases the county Health Department was reporting. He found it hard to believe that 39 people – the number reported as of Monday – had recovered from the virus since the first case was reported in Alamance County on March 20 and asked if false positives were possible.

"It just seems like the law of averages wouldn’t be there medically," Sutton said. "It’s hard for me to comprehend that, or buy that."

Saunders said the timeline wasn’t as neat as that. Cases are confirmed when people get positive test results. That generally happens after symptoms have started. Then it takes two to five days to see results. Isolation starts when the symptoms are reported, which is generally before the test is administered. People are released from isolation 72 hours after their symptoms stop.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they are fully recovered, Saunders said. It means they are no longer considered contagious. They might feel pretty bad for a while after. She also said some patients just recover faster than others.

Sutton asked if patients had a right to a second opinion once diagnosed. Saunders said anyone can consult a second doctor, but the Health Department was not asking for second tests for the virus to confirm positive results.

Budget

County Manager Bryan Hagood told the commissioners they would be seeing his recommended budget later than they were used to, saying he wanted to wait until June 1 to get a better idea of how the state and federal governments and national economy were reacting to the COVID-19 crisis.

That would mean the commissioners could have the required public hearing on June 15 and, if they chose, have a special called meeting to vote on the budget.

The commissioners agreed it would be best to have time to consider public input before voting.

There is an estimated $15 million gap between department budget requests and projected revenues, Hagood told the commissioners earlier this month. The shutdown of so many retail stores is expected to seriously cut into the county’s sales-tax revenue, and the commissioners will be expected to make some hard choices.

Most of the written submitted public comments to the board admonished the commissioners not to raise taxes during a difficult economic time.

The commissioners also heard the Alamance-Burlington School System’s budget presentation this week.

The Alamance-Burlington Board of Education voted in early March to request $45.7 million from the county for its 2020-21 budget – a $3.3 million increase over the current budget.

"It’s a different world that we’re in today," said ABSS Superintendent Bruce Benson.

The commissioners were generally positive about the ABSS presentation, but it was fairly obvious that the district might not get everything it had been hoping to receive.

"The budget is going to be the budget – it’s going to be tough," Galey said. "Think ‘does this expense – how directly does it relate to providing that sound basic education for children?’"

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